Chavez

[|Tigers Johnson|]

[quote name='BlackJesus' post='588873' date='Nov 8 2007, 07:36 AM'][size=4][font="Arial Black"]Other "dictatorships" [/font][/size]


[color="#0000FF"]Australia[/color]
Prime Minister - No term limits

[color="#0000FF"]Japan[/color]
Prime Minister - No term limits

[color="#0000FF"]France[/color]
President - No term limits

[color="#0000FF"]Italy[/color]
President - No term limits

[color="#0000FF"]Canada[/color]
Prime Minister - No term limits[/quote]


[quote name='Lawman' post='589537' date='Nov 8 2007, 07:00 PM']Earlier this year

[url="http://Rule%20by%20decree%20passed%20for%20Chavez"]Rule by decree passed for Chavez [/url]

[b]Venezuela's National Assembly has given initial approval to a bill granting the president the power to bypass congress and rule by decree for 18 months.[/b]

President Hugo Chavez says he wants "revolutionary laws" to enact sweeping political, economic and social changes.

He has said he wants to nationalise key sectors of the economy and [b]scrap limits on the terms a president can serve[/b].[/quote]

So much for checks and balances.

[Jamie_B]

This is not so much a comment on Chavez, but the notion idea that abolishing term limits here would be a good idea. I side with Jefferson.


[center][img]http://www.idea-sandbox.com/blog/blog_images/thomas_jefferson.jpg[/img]
[size=4]"If some period be not fixed, either by the Constitution or by practice, to the services of the First Magistrate, his office, though nominally elective, will in fact be for life; and that will soon degenerate into an inheritance." [/size][/center]


[url="http://etext.virginia.edu/jefferson/quotations/jeff1230.htm"]http://etext.virginia.edu/jefferson/quotations/jeff1230.htm[/url]

[bengalrick]

[quote name='Homer_Rice' post='589525' date='Nov 8 2007, 06:30 PM']Nothing, br. It was just my way of saying that I am both sad and amused.[/quote]

if bush did half of what chavez is doing, i would be picketing the streets... its not just b/c he is doing the polar opposite of what my politics lead my to believe... yes that is why it scares me even more, but the massive power grab, the lack of checks and balances, the punishing of political opponents, the closing down of so many public television stations, the shutting down of so many businesses... yes, i know there are some good things going on too, but lets be real... we both know that if oil wasn't shooting through the roof, their economy would fold like a deck of cards...

i know its easier to see problems in your neighbors yard vs. your own, but there is little doubt their yard is much dirtier... i can easily use them as a frame of reference...

[Chris Henrys Dealer]

On a somewhat related note, Brazil's state run oil co, Petrobas said that they have found a massive oil field in their Tupi Field. Something along the lines of 8 billion barrels and natural gas, and it's also apparently light crude that does not need heavy, expensive refining. If the find is true, it would make Brazil one of the largest producers in the world. In line with Venezuela, (but with an advantage given the Tupi field is "light" crude)

This is potentially worrisome for Chavez and Venezuela, as it was believed they had the most reserves, and hence pricing power in the region. US companies for example are already lining up. (But so are Chinese and Indian co's) However, any production from Tupi is probably 5-6 years away.

[|Bengal Migration|]

[quote name='Jamie_B' post='589688' date='Nov 9 2007, 02:17 PM']This is not so much a comment on Chavez, but the notion idea that abolishing term limits here would be a good idea. I side with Jefferson.


[center][img]http://www.idea-sandbox.com/blog/blog_images/thomas_jefferson.jpg[/img]
[size=4]"If some period be not fixed, either by the Constitution or by practice, to the services of the First Magistrate, his office, though nominally elective, will in fact be for life; and that will soon degenerate into an inheritance." [/size][/center]


[url="http://etext.virginia.edu/jefferson/quotations/jeff1230.htm"]http://etext.virginia.edu/jefferson/quotations/jeff1230.htm[/url][/quote]
And are missing the point, imo.

If they are having elections at regular intervals, as we did when FDR was reelected 3 times, there is still a fixed period involved. And if the vote goes the other way, there is no additional fixed period added for another term in office.

Or at least that's my take...

[Jamie_B]

[quote name='WhoDeyUK' post='589737' date='Nov 9 2007, 10:45 AM']And are missing the point, imo.

If they are having elections at regular intervals, as we did when FDR was reelected 3 times, there is still a fixed period involved. And if the vote goes the other way, there is no additional fixed period added for another term in office.

Or at least that's my take...[/quote]


No I understand that. Im just very very uneasy with the idea. The potential for us to have a king is far to great imo.

[Homer_Rice]

[quote name='bengalrick' post='589696' date='Nov 9 2007, 10:31 AM']if bush did half of what chavez is doing, i would be picketing the streets...[/quote]
You know you would get a lot of debate from the world community on that claim.

[quote]its not just b/c he is doing the polar opposite of what my politics lead my to believe... yes that is why it scares me even more, but the massive power grab, the lack of checks and balances, the punishing of political opponents, the closing down of so many public television stations, the shutting down of so many businesses... yes, i know there are some good things going on too, but lets be real... we both know that if oil wasn't shooting through the roof, their economy would fold like a deck of cards...[/quote]
Funny you mention the economy, as that is what essentially provoked my response yesterday. Game over, br. It's too late now--one way or another, there will be massive change in the medium term (next five years or so.) Unfortunately for you and me, I suspect that worm that turns will be a sour one. Though there's hope.

[quote]i know its easier to see problems in your neighbors yard vs. your own, but there is little doubt their yard is much dirtier... i can easily use them as a frame of reference...[/quote]
Myself, I'd be paying more attention to the fire that has the greatest potential for killing me and my loved ones.

[Homer_Rice]

[quote name='Chris Henrys Dealer' post='589700' date='Nov 9 2007, 10:38 AM']On a somewhat related note, Brazil's state run oil co, Petrobas said that they have found a massive oil field in their Tupi Field. Something along the lines of 8 billion barrels and natural gas, and it's also apparently light crude that does not need heavy, expensive refining. If the find is true, it would make Brazil one of the largest producers in the world. In line with Venezuela, (but with an advantage given the Tupi field is "light" crude)

This is potentially worrisome for Chavez and Venezuela, as it was believed they had the most reserves, and hence pricing power in the region. US companies for example are already lining up. (But so are Chinese and Indian co's) However, any production from Tupi is probably 5-6 years away.[/quote]
Interesting. Chavez and Kirchner have been trying to pull together a Latin American economic bloc; both have been flanking Lula and trying to get his full support (as the effort would be much easier to consolifdate with LatAm's largest economy. In Lula's admin, especially the Finance Ministry, there are some forces allied with Spain (Banco Santander, et al) whom would prefer the current neo-liberal way of running things. It's been quite a fight and this'll no doubt be a factor.

[Homer_Rice]

Jamie and UK;
The issue is not so much term limits as it is the peaceful transition of power to an opposition party. Term limits is just one legal mechanism that folks think about when confronting that issue.

Jefferson, as the key player in founding the first opposition party (and who, btw, is nowhere near as noble as many make him out to be today--which is also true for most of the founders) was just voicing his concern on this tactic.

Strategically speaking, and that's where all the real action is , the dangers of institutional "inheritance" have been a fact of American politics from the very beginning. Of late, the countervailing forces have been emasculated, and that's why the problem seems more pronounced now. But, what really is the issue, is the complex of ideas that serve oligarchical interests--ideas which run in opposition to those stated in the Dec. of Ind. and the Constit. Combined with the political inheritance factor, this is the danger of creeping modern feudalism.

Where's your middle class now? What is the range of potential movement for an individual in our society today? On what basis is such a movement possible? Those are the sorts of question that ought to preoccupy minds, especially around elections.

[Lawman]

[quote]bengalrick
but lets be real... we both know that if oil wasn't shooting through the roof, their economy would fold like a deck of cards...[/quote]

[url="http://www.frontpagemag.com/Articles/Read.aspx?GUID=822729EA-89A2-4F68-85D2-78C1EFDA4F76"]Hugo's"Socialist" Folly[/url]
[b]
By David Paulin/Friday, November 02, 2007 [/b]

[quote]Months into his presidency, Hugo Chavez tested the patience of Venezuelans with his frequent weeknight television addresses. Long and rambling, the impromptu talks provoked a common gripe: People were missing their favorite telenovelas.


After ten months, Venezuelans rebelled.

Minutes after Chavez began yet another address, they went to their windows holding kitchen spoons and pots. In a traditional Venezuelan protest, they banged them furiously as Chavez recounted his first 300 days in office. The first such protest against El Presidente occurred amid a paralyzed economy and record-low oil prices.

From my apartment in eastern Caracas, the pot-banging protest was so loud that, when I phoned fellow journalists, they could clearly hear the clanging over the telephone receiver I held out the window. Like a slow-moving grass fire, the protest in early December, 1999, spread from one apartment building and city block to another, mainly in middle and lower-middle class areas. Some TV reports showed people in slum areas engaging in the protest, apparently upset over soaring crime.


People were growing impatient. Chavez had won a landslide election because Venezuelans from all socio-economic classes – and not merely the poor, as is so often claimed – trusted the anti-establishment figure to clean up corruption and reduce declining living standards in the oil-rich but impoverished South American nation. But El Presidente had yet to undertake meaningful democratic reforms.

Chavez no longer commands the popularity he did. Massive street protests are common. But whether they’re for Chavez or against him, Venezuelans over the past four years have fervently engaged in another kind of protest, [u]one that has attracted much less media attention than massive street demonstrations.[/u] Whenever they can, they’re circumventing two of the cornerstones of Chavez’s command-and-control economy – draconian currency exchange and price controls.

The controls underscore an old joke about socialist states: t[i]hey offer socialism for the masses, and capitalism for the classes[/i]. Like Cuba’s dollar-based tourism economy, Venezuela’s has a parallel economy because of the controls. Rather than delivering Bolivarian social justice, they’re making the rich, richer – and poor, poorer. [b]They’re also producing “periodic” food shortages that mainly affect the poor. [/b]

Nearly four years ago, a crippling three-month oil worker strike prompted Chavez to introduce the controls to stop capital flight. Price controls were put on some 400 items to combat soaring inflation, now the highest in Latin America at 16 percent. As in the past, record-high oil prices have driven inflation, thanks to a flood of petro-dollars that has produced a government and consumer spending spree.

Like earlier Venezuelan leaders who implemented similar controls, Chavez has been bedeviled be a force more powerful than his edicts – the market. The economic controls have widened the gap between government-regulated prices and the cost of getting goods to consumers; and hence periodic food shortages.

In typical leftist fashion, Chavez has blamed the food shortages on the usual scapegoats – “speculators” and “hoarders.” Retailers, however, answer to Adam Smith, not the utopian Marxist ideals that enthrall Chavez. They must sell at a profit, not a loss.

For their part, well-off Venezuelans find ways around the shortages, either buying goods on the black market or from retailers who discretely sell above regulated prices. That’s not the case with the poor.
Just ask Ana Diaz, a 70-year-old housewife, who recently discovered that Chavez’s famous food markets – which sell at below-market prices – are not immune from market forces. "[i]They say there are no shortages, but I'm not finding anything in the stores,[/i]" she told an Associated Press reporter last February. Nor is Bolivarian socialism very customer-oriented.[b] Diaz said she waited in line for eight hours – all for a bag of chicken, milk, vegetable oil and sugar. [/b]

The article’s headline announced: “Meat, Sugar Scarce in Venezuela Stores.”

According to its opening paragraph:

“Meat cuts vanished from Venezuelan supermarkets this week, leaving only unsavory bits like chicken feet, while costly artificial sweeteners have increasingly replaced sugar, and many staples sell far above government-fixed prices.”

Chavez is not the first Venezuelan president to undertake price and exchange controls. His predecessor, Rafael Caldera, implemented similarly draconian exchange and price controls in an effort to halt falling living standards. But amid an increasingly deteriorating economy and record-low oil prices, Caldera eventually saw the light. Going against his populists and leftist ideological instincts, he inaugurated a series of painful economic reforms backed by the International Monitory Fund.

When reporting on Caldera’s about face, I wrote the kind of story editors want – one describing the short-term pain felt by ordinary people thanks to Caldera’s IMF-backed reforms. “Things are tough. We're eating less meat and lots more pasta, rice and beans,” I quoted Dila Ferreira, a 57-year-old maid, as saying in pieces published in Newsday, Houston Chronicle, Dallas Morning News, and International Herald Tribune. Her comment was reflected by marketing surveys showing that low-income Venezuelans were indeed changing their eating habits.
I wonder how Ferreira is doing today. Under Caldera’s painful free-market reforms, she was eating less meat. Now, she may not be eating any meat at all.

Chavez claims his anti-poverty programs have reduced Venezuela’s poverty rate. But poverty experts say they are not serious programs that will produce lasting changes, and their impact has been marginal at best.
Ironically, the market has probably produced greater reductions in poverty than Bolivarian socialism and earlier anti-poverty programs. Traditionally, Venezuela has seen poverty decrease during earlier oil booms. In the oil-based economy, the market’s trickle-down effect tended to lift everyone’s boat in spite of some of Venezuela having some of the world’s worst corruption and inept governance. By all accounts, these scourges have soared to epic levels under Chavez.

[b]A Party for the Rich[/b]

Despite Chavez’s socialist pretensions, the go-go days of “Saudi Venezuela” – as Venezuela was called in the 1970s – have returned. The rich and merely well off are having a party, which is reflected in a surge of bourgeoisie imports such as expensive whiskey, high demand for plastic surgery, and an overseas travel binge.

Sales of expensive cars are booming, too, just as during the Caldera’s era of soaring inflation and economic controls. Unable to buy U.S. dollars as a hedge against soaring inflation, people instead buy durable goods such as cars.

Living hand to mouth, the poor have no such options in the face of accumulated inflation that has soared past 90 percent the past four years. And they’ll soon suffer more when Chavez devalues the currency, as he’s poised to do, to pay for his spending spree at home and abroad. The bolivar’s official rate is more than 2,150 to $1, but it’s overvalued by an estimated 50 percent.

Chavez’s Bolivarian socialism and exchange controls are making for odd bedfellows, too. They controls are frightening off potential investors, hindering the repatriation of profits, and impeding local businesses that depend on imports. The constantly complain about an inability to obtain an adequate supply of dollars.

Corruption under the controls is another problem. Under Chavez and previous administrations that implemented exchange controls, officials have regularly been accused of accepting bribes to authorize or speed up requests to buy dollars.

[b]Ironically, the controls are producing handsome profits on the Caracas Stock Exchange, the workplace of some of those “oligarchs” whom Chavez so often vilifies. Companies have been utilizing the stock exchange’s dollar-denominated bond market to meet their need for dollars.

The controls are not the only example of Bolivarian socialism’s contradictions. After a hard day at the office, those bond traders can fill up their Hummers for about $1.50. Catering to the notion that cheap gasoline is a Venezuelan birthright, Chavez’s administration, like earlier ones, spend billions of dollars to sell gasoline at unprofitable prices, about 7 cents per gallon. The gasoline subsidy exceeds what Chavez spends on his social programs, say economists.[/b]

In the scramble to obtain dollars, the real wheeling and dealing occurs on the black market. Some Venezuelans have been buying U.S. dollars at the official rate, claiming they need them for a trip. Then they sell them on the black market for twice their value.

Recently, Bloomberg described one scheme:

“Some Venezuelans travel to nearby Curaçao, where they buy $5,000 of casino poker chips with their credit cards, exchange the chips for cash and then sell the dollars on the black market back in Caracas.”

Chavez has vowed to crack down on such schemes. But he’s unlikely to eliminate untold numbers of less conspicuous black market transactions involving willing buyers and sellers.

During Caldera’s exchange controls, I regularly visited a good-natured Spaniard who had a retail outlet that depended on U.S. imports. I wrote him checks from a Miami bank, which he then sent to his U.S. bank. He gladly paid me a good black market rate. I was one popular gringo.

They were good days for people who earned decent salaries and got paid in U.S. dollars.

Under Chavez, those days are back with a vengeance. Under the banner of socialism and anti-Americanism, he has repackaged bad ideas from Venezuela’s past – statism, authoritarianism, and populism – and taken them to new extremes. Blessed with record-high oil prices, he has created a new class of elites. The poor majority, meanwhile, gets bread-and-circus populism.

In the end, Bolivarian socialism in the 21st century looks a lot like earlier variants that ended in failure.[/quote]

[|BlackJesus|]

[quote name='Lawman' post='589800' date='Nov 9 2007, 02:31 PM'][url="http://www.frontpagemag.com/Articles/Read.aspx?GUID=822729EA-89A2-4F68-85D2-78C1EFDA4F76"]Hugo's"Socialist" Folly[/url][/quote]


[b]FrontPageRag (Horowitz' site) should come with a stupidity warning.

Hell I might as well read the "flat earthers" [/b]

[|BlackJesus|]

[quote name='bengalrick' post='589696' date='Nov 9 2007, 09:31 AM']if bush did half of what chavez is doing, i would be picketing the streets...[/quote]

[b]Bush has done much much much much much WORSE for YEARS !

Bush invaded 2 countries - Chavez 0

Bush has probably caused around 1 million deaths - Chavez hardly any

Bush has shredded the Constitution - Chavez is trying to shread theirs

Bush publicly backs tortures - Chavez does not

Bush uses signing statements to in effect make him a king - Chavez only wishes he had such power

Bush is threatening invading another country - Chavez has never done such a thing

[size=3]Bush only has support of 29 % of the public - Chavez 70 % + [/b][/size]







[quote name='bengalrick' post='589696' date='Nov 9 2007, 09:31 AM']the lack of checks and balances,[/quote]
[b] good thing we have those here [img]http://forum.go-bengals.com/public/style_emoticons//24.gif[/img][/b]

[Lawman]

[quote name='BlackJesus' post='589804' date='Nov 9 2007, 02:45 PM'][b]FrontPageRag (Horowitz' site) should come with a stupidity warning.

Hell I might as well read the "flat earthers" [/b][/quote]

[b]By David Paulin[/b]

[quote]Minutes after Chavez began yet another address, they went to their windows holding kitchen spoons and pots. In a traditional Venezuelan protest, they banged them furiously as Chavez recounted his first 300 days in office. [u]The first such protest against El Presidente occurred amid a paralyzed economy and record-low oil prices.[/u]

From my apartment in eastern Caracas, the pot-banging protest was so loud that, when I phoned fellow journalists, they could clearly hear the clanging over the telephone receiver I held out the window. Like a slow-moving grass fire, the protest in early December, 1999, spread from one apartment building and city block to another, mainly in middle and lower-middle class areas. Some TV reports showed people in slum areas engaging in the protest, apparently upset over soaring crime.

Chavez is not the first Venezuelan president to undertake price and exchange controls. His predecessor, Rafael Caldera, implemented similarly draconian exchange and price controls in an effort to halt falling living standards. But amid an increasingly deteriorating economy and record-low oil prices, Caldera eventually saw the light. Going against his populists and leftist ideological instincts, he inaugurated a series of painful economic reforms backed by the International Monitory Fund.

[b]When reporting on Caldera’s about face, I wrote the kind of story editors want [/b]– one describing the short-term pain felt by ordinary people thanks to Caldera’s IMF-backed reforms. “Things are tough. We're eating less meat and lots more pasta, rice and beans,” I quoted Dila Ferreira, a 57-year-old maid, as saying in pieces published in Newsday, Houston Chronicle, Dallas Morning News, and International Herald Tribune. Her comment was reflected by marketing surveys showing that low-income Venezuelans were indeed changing their eating habits.
I wonder how Ferreira is doing today. [u]Under Caldera’s painful free-market reforms, she was eating less meat. Now, she may not be eating any meat at all. [/u][/quote]

Don't like the message, shoot the messenger. Oh wait, I have an article on that too.

David Paulin, an Austin, TX-based [b]free-lance [/b]journalist, is a [i]former[/i] [b]Caracas-based foreign correspondent[/b].

[Lawman]

[quote]Bush only has support of 29 % of the public - [u]Chavez 70 %[/u] +[/quote]

Looks like Chavez has some work to do; Saddam got 100% of the votes.

[|BlackJesus|]

[quote name='Lawman' post='589820' date='Nov 9 2007, 03:07 PM']Looks like Chavez has some work to do; Saddam got 100% of the votes.[/quote]

[b]1) You mean the US backed Saddam who we armed to invade Iran and who Rummy went to Iraq to coddle in the 80's ... and who we gave Gas to in order to kill the Kurds ... yeah that guy was neat

2) The entire Intl community has signed off on Chavez's elections ... (more than can be said for ours) ... and the only people who smear him are reich wing lunatics like you who think Muslims and commies are out to steal your wal mart merchandise and force your wife into a burkha with a hammer and sickle on it. [/b]

[Lawman]

[quote name='BlackJesus' post='589826' date='Nov 9 2007, 03:12 PM'][b]1) You mean the US backed Saddam who we armed to invade Iran and who Rummy went to Iraq to coddle in the 80's ... and who we gave Gas to in order to kill the Kurds ... yeah that guy was neat

2) The entire Intl community has signed off on Chavez's elections ... (more than can be said for ours) ... and the only people who smear him are reich wing lunatics like you who think Muslims and commies are out to steal your wal mart merchandise and force your wife into a burkha with a hammer and sickle on it. [/b][/quote]
[img]http://www.r1schools.org/home/oneal/gearhart/onealredherringpage_files/image003.gif[/img]

[|BlackJesus|]

[quote name='Lawman' post='589838' date='Nov 9 2007, 03:31 PM'][img]http://www.r1schools.org/home/oneal/gearhart/onealredherringpage_files/image003.gif[/img][/quote]

[b]Who the fuck brought up Saddam in the first place ? = YOU

So how is it a Red Herring when I respond with the reality of how he got that 100 % initially ... which was with US backing. [img]http://forum.go-bengals.com/public/style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/30.gif[/img]
[/b]

[Lawman]

[quote name='BlackJesus' post='589840' date='Nov 9 2007, 03:36 PM'][b]Who the fuck brought up Saddam in the first place ? = YOU

So how is it a Red Herring when I respond with the reality of how he got that 100 % initially ... which was with US backing. [img]http://forum.go-bengals.com/public/style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/30.gif[/img]
[/b][/quote]

The analogy was related to the percentages of votes Saddam would claim and the reported percentage of support that Chavez claims. This anology was still within the confines of the subject at hand; however what you posted went outside that boundary. Henceforth a red-herring.

[Homer_Rice]

Kind of a political follow up to CHD's and my exchange the other day:

[url="http://www.elpais.com/articulo/internacional/Rey/Chavez/callas/elpepuint/20071110elpepuint_13/Tes"]King of Spain to Chavez: "¿Por qué no te callas?" (Why Don't You Shut Up?)[/url]

Article is in Spanish, but in essence, Juan Carlos (in this corner...the oligarchy) gets pissed at Chavez (in this corner...radical nationalist) for dissing former Spanish Prez Aznar as a fascist.

[url="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/huff-wires/20071110/chile-summit-spat/"](HuffPo for English summary.)[/url]

Keep in mind that in Spain these are very touchy terms, as fascism lasted there longer than anywhere else in Europe. In related news: Generalissimo Francisco Franco is still dead.

[bengalrick]

[quote name='Homer_Rice' post='590379' date='Nov 11 2007, 07:38 AM']Kind of a political follow up to CHD's and my exchange the other day:

[url="http://www.elpais.com/articulo/internacional/Rey/Chavez/callas/elpepuint/20071110elpepuint_13/Tes"]King of Spain to Chavez: "¿Por qué no te callas?" (Why Don't You Shut Up?)[/url]

Article is in Spanish, but in essence, Juan Carlos (in this corner...the oligarchy) gets pissed at Chavez (in this corner...radical nationalist) for dissing former Spanish Prez Aznar as a fascist.

[url="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/huff-wires/20071110/chile-summit-spat/"](HuffPo for English summary.)[/url]

Keep in mind that in Spain these are very touchy terms, as fascism lasted there longer than anywhere else in Europe. In related news: Generalissimo Francisco Franco is still dead.[/quote]

i think i see where your going with this... chavez is alienating himself with the world, and will most likely bury himself... i hope this is the case...

[STRAYCAT]

I like how the king of spain told chavez to shut his pie whole because he would interupt the other guy trying to finish speaking

[Actium]

El Rey de Espana pwns Chavez:

[url="http://www.breitbart.com/article.php?id=D8SR2R2O1&show_article=1"]http://www.breitbart.com/article.php?id=D8...;show_article=1[/url]

[Actium]

[quote name='STRAYCAT' post='590479' date='Nov 11 2007, 10:47 AM']I like how the king of spain told chavez to shut his pie whole because he would the other guy finish speaking [/quote]

that was hilarious...

Chavez should study up on Franco...now there was a real dictator.

[Jamie_B]

[Homer_Rice]

[quote name='bengalrick' post='590477' date='Nov 11 2007, 12:36 PM']i think i see where your going with this... chavez is alienating himself with the world, and will most likely bury himself... i hope this is the case...[/quote]
True, Chavez has never been known for his diplomacy. But, I just thought it interesting to point out recent confrontations/discussions between oligarchs and reformists in the context of a dying international financial system. After all, what was the meeting all about? What's the subtext?

And, br, if I had to pick a side, I'd pick the Kirchner side over the parasitic rotten old nobility--which has no reason to exist on the planet anymore anyways. Lord Loveaduck might still have a useful societal function useful, though.